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Overview

This plugin is designed to run nightly and scan for new Rock Shop plugin releases. When it finds any new releases they are added to a checklist block on your home screen. Once you have reviewed the release you can tic the checkbox to remove it from the list.

Check For New Plugins Job

A new job will be added to your system called Check For New Plugins. Each time this job runs it checks the Rock Shop for any new plugins that have been released recently. There are a few configuration options that you may want to tweak, but the job will work fine with the default settings.

First is the number of Days Back to look for plugins. By default this is set for 30. You can change this value but it really shouldn't matter too much since the job runs every night. So the only major difference this will normally make is on the initial run it will help dictate the number of plugins it find on the initial few runs. The higher number can be used though if you wish to change the job to not run daily.

The one setting that is most likely to be of interest to you is the Only Show Updates option. When turned on the job will only look for updates to plugins you have already installed. If you are not interested in learning about any new plugins and just want to know when an update for a plugin you are using is available, you can turn this option on.

The final setting is the Checklist Template. This is the Lava that is used to build the detail content of the checklist item that will show up on the home screen. Below are the lava objects that are available to you if you want to customize the details at all.

Per-User Notifications

The normal method the plugin alerts you to new releases is via an Administrative Checklist block. This works great but when one person checks off an item it removes it for all users. Sometimes this is what you want. But some might want each user to decide when to dismiss that notification. Some of your admins may not care about new plugins at all and want to get rid of that notice as soon as possible. Others might want to leave it around for a few days until they have a chance to look into it and see what it has to offer.

Starting in version 2 of the plugin, you can switch from teh default checklist method to per-user notifications. These use the standard Notifications built into Rock. An example of these are when a new version of Rock is released, you get a notification on your homepage telling you. To configure this, you need to set a couple extra options.

1. Display As Notifications needs to be turned on.
2. Notification Group should be set to the security role whose (active) members will see these notifications.
3. Notification Type allows you to change the color of the notification: Success (Green); Info (Blue); Warning (Yellow); Danger (Red). The default is Info/Blue.

Lava Objects

• Release
  • Id
  • Guid
  • VersionLabel
  • RequiredRockVersion
  • Description
  • DocumentationUrl
  • Package
    • Id
    • Guid
    • Name
    • Description
    • Price
    • IsFree
    • Vendor
      • Id
      • Guid
      • Name
    • Rating
    • SupportUrl
    • PackageIconBinaryFile
      • Id
      • Guid
      • ImageUrl
• Installed Version (Currently installed version number of this plugin or empty string if not installed)
• RequiresRockUpdate (True if this release requires a newer version of Rock than you currently have)

Recent Plugins Defined Type

Whenever the job runs it will add any new releases found to the Recent Plugins defined type. This means you can use this list to go back and look at items that were released a few weeks ago if you think you may have seen something that interests you now.

Recent Plugins Block

A new block will be added to your home screen that will behave just like the Admin Checklist block from when you first installed Rock. Any items that are checked off will disappear from the home screen list, but you can always go view the Defined Type and turn them back on or just use it to see what recently came out if you need a refresher.

The information given to you is the name and version of the block as well as the approximate date it was released. Because there is nothing in the Rock Shop that specifically tracks a published date for a plugin, we use the Modified Date property of a plugin version release to determine it's release date. This means you may occasionally see a plugin show up if it is modified after release. However, this should be a rare occurrence as released plugins may not be modified except by the core Rock team.

The "Recent Changes" for that specific release will be included when you expand the item. If the release requires a newer version of Rock than you currently have installed it will be noted in the detail information. Finally if you already have a version of the plugin installed then it will be indicated which version you already have.